Suffering is something that causes a lot of people to question the existence of God. If God is good, then how does He let evil happen? A god of love is one that is supposed to save His people from all danger and harm. The reality is that God is a good god, but evil does exist. Suffering exists because of The Fall . Sin was brought into the world, and the consequence for this sin is suffering and ultimately death. This does not make God a bad god, but rather makes us more reliant on Him.
The Woman at the Well – John 4
This story is about Jesus talking to women on His way through Samaria. This story shows how the idea of forgiveness can spread the Kingdom of God. This may not make a whole lot of sense when you first hear it, but she would not have taken this forgiveness and this gesture of love as important if she had not have had struggle. God uses His people as masks to do the work of His Kingdom, and often times it is through suffering that He shows both us and those around us His love, compassion, and forgiveness. This woman is cast out by society, which is why she is going to the well at noon rather than in the morning with the other women. The reason she is
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This is the path that glorifies God and shows His character. It is not us that are glorified through our actions, but rather Him through us. He uses us as His vessels to do His work, so by remaining disciplined in what God has commanded His work is done and His Kingdom is grown. This instance would say the God allows suffering to help develop His followers. It is through these experiences that we look and see Gods character, as well as shows others this character. The suffering that we face is to help glorify God, and become righteous in His sight for it is said in the Old Testament “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness”
After reviewing the work of David Hume, the idea of a God existing in a world filled with so much pain and suffering is not so hard to understand. Humes’ work highlights some interesting points which allowed me to reach the conclusion that suffering is perhaps a part of God’s divine plan for humans. Our morals and values allow us to operate and live our daily lives in conjunction with a set of standards that help us to better understand our world around us and essentially allows us to better prepare for the potential life after life. For each and every day we get closer to our impending deaths and possibly closer to meeting the grand orchestrator of our universe.
The question of suffering comes up much when talking about, or practicing any religion. Many ask why people suffer, and what causes suffering? The various religions try to answer these questions in their own way. Pico Iyer’s editorial, “The Value of Suffering” addresses the questions of suffering and how it is handled. This article could be compared to the Bhagavad-Gita which also addresses and explains suffering through different stories of the interactions of humans and different Gods. One can specifically look at “The Second Teaching” in the Bhagavad-Gita, which explains the interaction between a man named Arjuna and the god Krishna. In it Arjuna is suffering because he does not want to fight in a war and with people whom he should be worshiping. Krishna says to fight because the souls of the people will forever live on, and because he needs to fulfill his Dharma. With what is known about the Bhagavad-Gita and how Iyer thinks about the subject, Iyer would agree with how the Bhagavad-Gita address suffering.
There is so much evil in the world such as: murder, child mortality, torture, rape, assault and more. So how can there be an all loving God if these things are constantly happening? In this paper, I will be arguing that there is in fact no such thing as an all loving and all powerful God due to Evil. When I think of an all-loving God, I think of God as someone who would never allow a child to be kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed. I think of God as someone who would not allow anything bad or evil to happen in this world. I am not saying people would not get their fair share of misfortune now and again, but they would never experience evil, pain or suffering. That being said, there would be no evil or vindictive people in this world
I don’t see this being true of all moral virtue. For example, the virtue of independence is not created through suffering: its created by the need of relying on your own judgment and action. Along with that, there are a lot of evil and suffering that we see on a daily basis that does not teach us lessons, for example, a two year old dying from cancer or a hurricane destroying homes and lives; showing compassion can be praiseworthy. It may be argue, well supported by the evidence of post-Holocaust genocides, that mankind has not taken this lesson to heart. God’s goal is to create moral individuals and he allows evil to teach us moral lessons that we are supposed to learn from. Suffering and evil are not necessary conditions for moral development. We can learn morality without being subjected to evil. Likewise, purposely exposing one to evil in order to teach them a lesson seems outrageous. Another important problem with this theodicy is that it makes an image out of suffering. If morality depends on the existence of suffering, then if there was no suffering, then suffering would be solely around to have morality or teach a moral
God is all kind then why is there suffering? Who or what is the cause
‘’The woman thing’’ by Audre Lorde reflects more on her life as a woman, this poem relates to the writers work and also has the theme of feminism attached it. The writers role in this poem is to help the women in discovering their womanhood just as the title say’s ‘’the woman thing.’’ The poem is free verse and doesn’t have a rhyme to it and has twenty-five lines.
Why do the innocent suffer? This question has been asked for ages. Jewish sources, from the earliest to the latest, have tried themselves to answer this. It occurs to every single person with an interest in religion or not. We all know cases of good people who suffer terrible pains for no obvious reason. From a religious side of life this disturbs me because it seems to contradict certain basic Jewish beliefs. In particular, we believe: God is omniscient (He knows everything), God is omnipotent (He can do anything), and God is just. If these beliefs are right then how is it possible that innocent people suffer?
It is part and parcel of the human condition, but suffering can either embitter or ennoble. Our suffering can become a spirituality of transformation when we understand that we have a role in God's transfiguration of the world. If we are truly partners with God, we must learn the eye of God, not just to see the eyes of the head, but to see with the eyes of the heart"(pg. 71). Nelson Mandela, for him, he faced suffering, he was imprisoned for 27 years. As a young boy, he was upset, angry, but he let not embitter suffer to his life. The suffering changed him because he allowed it to ennoble
God is all-knowing, God is all-powerful, God is all-good, suffering and evil will not exists in this world. When we read or hear of disasters, deaths and sufferings, we always question why God would allow all these to happen. We always question God why God did not prevent them from happening. We always question why He would allow innocent people to suffer in different ways? Why does evil exists?
The concept of suffering plays an important role in Christianity, regarding such matters as moral conduct, spiritual advancement and ultimate destiny. Indeed an emphasis on suffering pervades the Gospel of Mark where, it can be argued, we are shown how to "journey through suffering" (Ditzel 2001) in the image of the "Suffering Son of Man" (Mark 8:32), Jesus Christ. Although theologians have suggested that Mark was written to strengthen the resolve of the early Christian community (Halpern 2002, Mayerfeld 2005), the underlying moral is not lost on a modern reader grappling with multifarious challenges regarding faith in the face of suffering. In his article "A Christian Response to Suffering", William Marravee (1987) describes suffering as an "experience over which we men and women continue to stumble and fall". The way we view God is crucial to the way we view suffering according to Marravee, who delineates the disparity between a view of God as an ‘outsider’ and the biblical image of God – where God is an ‘insider’ who suffers with us in our struggle. This essay seeks to explain the Christian view of suffering and the purpose suffering can have in our lives.
This comes back around to the argument of moral law. Christians know that the suffering in the world is bad because it is not from God, and does not line up with his plan for us. But, in a world without God, who is to say that the suffering is bad, and not suffering is good. These assumptions assume that there is a perfect standard. This perfect standard is God.
Good Deeds then gets called upon. They say that even though they want to go on the journey, they are unable to at the moment. They advise Everyman to speak to Knowledge. Knowledge is the one that brings Everyman on the journey to cleanse himself. They first go to Confession, which gives him a penance.
God allows humans to exercise free-will to choose their actions. When humans take advantage of their God-given free-will and make choices that are self-serving, they inflict pain and suffering on others. Human suffering is a result of man’s need to make himself a god and be king over other people. Humans have the choice to do evil or good. When they choose to do evil, they cause their fellow man to suffer. God gives man a choice of actions. When man chooses to act selfishly, he causes suffering. Although God has ordained every event that happens from the beginning of time, and gives humans the freedom to choose their actions, He is not the author of evil. God does not like evil, nor is he the creator of it. God only allows evil if it serves His greater purpose and plan for His people. God only allows evil if it serves the purpose of his plan or strengthens the faith of His believers. God can also use suffering in a person’s life to help them realize their current favorable situation is not a result of good luck or fortune, but because God allows them to be prosperous. Men do not realize all the earthly blessings they possess are given by the hand of
For this assignment, I’ve chosen to write about Evil and Suffering. This topic is particularly interesting to me because I believe in the existence of Evil and God. I believe that some Evil and Suffering is not the work of God. The problem of evil is that people have made a choice to produce suffering on other people. And the people who suffer question the existence of God.
The Christian tradition is haunted by a significant mark: Suffering. The question that arises from this suffering is if God is the omnipitous being that Christians believe Him to be, why would He let His people, whom he loves, suffer great pains and horrible deaths? According to premises derived from theologians and followers of the Bible, God is "all loving". If that is true, then God would not want His people to suffer, but by just looking around us we see that suffering, in fact, is happening. If there is suffering going on that God does not want, then He would be able to stop that suffering since He also believed to be "all powerful", yet suffering still goes on. Why? Hopefully by the end of this paper I will be able to answer that for myself.